Volume 42, Number 10 • November 2007 In This Issue Noam Chomsky and Jeffrey Sachs to join AAG for Boston Meeting wo of the world’s most influential people by leading public intel- Time magazine. COM lectuals – Noam . Jeffrey Sachs, the direc- ORK T W Chomsky and Jeffrey Sachs tor of the Earth Institute at From the Meridian .................... 2 – are scheduled to par- USEFUL Columbia University, will President’s Column................... 3 ticipate in the Association deliver the Opening Ses- AAG Washington Monitor ....... 7 of American Geographers : WWW. sion keynote address at the Grants and Competitions .......12 Annual Meeting in Boston, CREDIT AAG meeting on Tuesday, Call for Papers .............................13 to be held April 15-19, Chomsky Sachs April 15. Sachs, who is also Specialty Group News .............14 2008. “In terms of the pow- professor of Sustainable New Appointments ..................15 er, range, novelty and influence of his thought, Development and professor of Health Policy and Grants and Awards ...................16 Noam Chomsky is arguably the most important Management at Columbia, is a widely known for Award Deadlines .......................17 intellectual alive today,” wrote Paul Robinson his work as an economic advisor to governments in Geographic Centers .................17 recently in the New York Times Book Review. Jeffrey Latin America, Eastern Europe, the former Yugo- Books Received ..........................18 Sachs has been cited in The New York Times Maga- slavia, the former Soviet Union, Asia, and Africa. Of Note ..........................................19 zine as “probably the most important economist in He is also Special Advisor to United Nations Sec- Jobs in Geography ....................20 the world.” Sachs is the only academic to have retary-General Ban Ki-moon. From 2002 to 2006, Quarter Century .........................46 been repeatedly ranked among the world’s 100 Members of Note ......................46 Continued on page 2 Events .............................................47 Forthcoming in AAG Journals ........................48 New Patterns in Boston’s Ethnic Quilt oston is well known as a historic newer non-European ethnic groups: the COM gateway to the United States three largest Asian nationality groups, the X. for European immigrants, first three largest Hispanic (or Latino) nation- CLEANPI B for the English and then the Irish, Ital- ality groups, and the three largest other ians, and others. Although not a major nationality groups. This sketch focuses on : WWW. immigrant destination today, over one the distinctive patterns of settlement and CREDIT quarter of Boston’s city residents are employment specializations of each group Children play on the duck statues in Boston’s Public Gardens, located just foreign-born, and parts of the city and by using data from Census 2000, especially across from the Boston Common. Site of the 2008 AAG Annual Meeting, metropolitan area are being reshaped SF4, and other sources. The non-Asian Boston is a great place for family-oriented activities. Visit the AAG Annual by newcomers of very different origins and non-Hispanic groups are measured Meeting Parent’s Exchange to share information on child care, family from those who arrived earlier. by total ancestries reported. Because the activities in Boston, and more at: http://aag.org/annualmeetings/2008/ To acquaint AAG members with these childcare.htm. developments, we look at nine of the Continued on page 8 Abstract and Session Submission Deadline for 2008 AAG Annual Meeting Extended to November 30. www.aag.org AAG Newsletter 1 November 2007 From the Meridian Chomsky and Sachs to join AAG for Annual Meeting from page 1 AAG Newsletter he also served as Special Advisor to United and was promoted to Associate Professor of the Association of American Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and in 1982 and Full Professor in 1983. Geographers Director of the UN Millennium Project. Jeffrey Sachs’ Opening Session Key- He has worked extensively with interna- note Address will provide an apt begin- tional agencies and private foundations on ning to a meeting during which the topics problems of poverty reduction, hunger, and of Geography and Global Sustainability Douglas Richardson, Publisher and Managing Editor disease control – especially HIV/AIDS – will be pervasive, necessary, and inescap- in the developing world. able themes. Jim Ketchum, Editor Sachs is also President and Co-Founder I am also delighted to announce that AAG Voice 202-234-1450 of Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit that Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor of AAG Fax 202-234-2744 organization aimed at end- Linguistics at the Massachu- [email protected] ing extreme global poverty. setts Institute of Technol- www.aag.org He is one of the leading ogy, has agreed to join us at voices for combining eco- the AAG meeting in Boston USPS 987-380 ISSN 0275-3995 nomic development with for a special session which environmental sustainability, I have organized and will The AAG Newsletter ISSN 0275- and as Director of the Earth host, entitled “A Conver- 3995 is published monthly with July/ Institute leads large-scale sation with Noam Chom- August combined, by the Association efforts to promote the miti- sky,” scheduled for Friday of American Geographers, 1710 16th gation of human-induced afternoon, April 18, 2008. Street NW, Washington, DC 20009- climate change. This special session will be 3198. The cost of an annual sub- Sachs’ research interests a conversational interview, Richardson scription is $25.00 The subscription include the links of health followed by an opportunity price is included in the annual dues of and development, econom- for audience participation the Association. Not available to non- ic geography, globalization, international through a question and answer period. members. Periodicals postage paid in financial markets, emerging markets, eco- As most geographers know, Chomsky Washington, DC. All news items and nomic development and growth, global has written and lectured widely on linguis- letters, including job listings, should be competitiveness, and macroeconomic pol- tics, philosophy, intellectual history, con- sent to the Editor at the address below icies in developing and developed coun- temporary issues, international affairs, and or to [email protected]. tries. He is author or co-author of more U.S. foreign policy. A small sampling of All Newsletter materials must arrive than two hundred scholarly articles, and his numerous publications include: Syntactic at the Association office by the 1st of has written or edited many books, includ- Structures, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax; Ameri- ing New York Times bestseller the month preceding the month of the The End of can Power and the New Mandarins; Cartesian Lin- Poverty (Penguin, 2005). guistics; Language and Mind; For Reasons of State; publication. This includes job listings. Sachs is the recipient of many awards Reflections on Language; The Political Economy of Material will be published on a space and honors, including membership in the Human Rights (with E.S. Herman); Knowledge of available basis and at the discretion of Institute of Medicine, and the American Language; On Power and Ideology; Language and the editorial staff. Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also Problems of Knowledge; Necessary Illusions; Letters When your address changes, please the 2005 recipient of the Sargent Shriver from Lexington; World Orders, Old and New; notify the Association office immedi- Award for Equal Justice, and recipient of Powers and Prospects; The Common Good; Profit ately. Six weeks notice is necessary honorary degrees from around the world. Over People; New Horizons in the Study of Lan- to insure uninterrupted delivery of Prior to his arrival at Columbia Uni- guage and Mind; and Understanding Power. AAG publications. To assist the AAG versity in July 2002, Sachs spent over Chomsky’s work on the nature of office in your address change, include twenty years at Harvard University, most human language and communication the address label with your change of recently as Galen L. Stone Professor of has profoundly transformed the field of address. International Trade and Director of the linguistics, and greatly influenced sci- Postmaster: Send address changes Center for International Development. He ence and philosophy more broadly. New to AAG Newsletter, 1710 16th Street received his BA, summa cum laude, from York Times Magazine writer Daniel Yergin NW, Washington, DC 20009-3198, or Harvard College in 1976, and his MA and characterizes Chomsky’s “formulation of [email protected]. PhD from Harvard University in 1978 and ‘transformational grammar’ as one of the 1980, respectively. He joined the Harvard faculty as an Assistant Professor in 1980, Continued on page 4 2 AAG Newsletter www.aag.org November 2007 State Department Appoints Schwartz Geographer of the United States ee Schwartz, Director of rotating science fellows on a warning. His recent work has focused on the State Department’s regular basis, and launching ethnic conflict, refugee flows, peacekeep- LOffice of The Geographer the interagency Humanitarian ing operations, conflict mitigation and and Global Issues for the past Information Unit. response, and humanitarian information five years, has been officially Previously, Schwartz held coordination. Schwartz was named the appointed as The Geographer positions in the Office of the State Department’s 2005 winner of the of the United States, a posi- Geographer as division